RIP Captain Beefheart

[jon abbey]

just found out, pretty upset about this. thanks for everything, Mr. Van Vliet. you were a rare and special genius.

[sevenarts]

Yeah, I just heard as well. Very sad news. He was utterly unique and amazing.

[yonhosago]

Fuck
This is very sad.
RIP & QEPD

[Jesse]

Gassho, Captain Beefheart.

Smoked my first sensimmila [15] at the degenerate hovel of an older chum who was mad for Trout Mask, Wild Man Fischer, Moondog.

There is so much about him, aside from the music, that was improbably brave [and sweet].
RIP

[faster]

The best thing ever associated with Zappa. RIP indeed.

[patois]

Of my earliest musical memories, spinning The Spotlight Kid on my Winnie-the-Pooh record player, over and over as a 9yr old, after finding it in dad's garage-sale pile. Been booglarized ever since, i guess... see ya, Captain.

[surfer]

I once had a cat named Apes-Ma.

I once played "Harry Irene" on a non-stop loop during a Thanksgiving dinner (true story).

He once worked as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, during which time he sold a vacuum cleaner to the writer Aldous Huxley at his home in Llano, pointing to it and declaring, "Well I assure you sir, this thing sucks."

RIP Mirror Man, truly the most interesting man in the world.

[surfer]

[Dan Warburton]

A real giant. Great great music. Sad to learn this - but he'd been going down slowly with MS for a while. Still, 69's too soon to go.

[grisha]

not the best thing to read the first thing in the morning.

RIP.

[Steve Reynolds]

why do I cry?

Why am I joyful that I found his music when I was 30?


I always feel a bit for those who don't know his music or can't hear it.

along with the substances that almost took my life, his music opened up my ears to everything


and yesterday I brought my copy of Bat Chain Puller (Shiny Beast) to the car for listen - and I almost put it in the CD player - I guess it goes in this morning - a coincidence - been quite a few months since I put the great man's music on the stereo.

for a week or 2 Trout Mask Replica (on a cassette tape) was unlistenable but I couldn't stop listening - is it the single greatest album ever put down on tape?

well the poems are - not an opinion - and the closer - lordy lordy

within a year it was Mingus, Miles, Monk then Ornette then Cecil and a few years later Evan Parker, Albert Ayler, Paul Dunmall, Andrew Cyrille, then AMM, John Stevens, Keith Rowe and everything in between and more


you gotta hear, you gotta listen!?!?


BUT for that year I could only be excited about the Captain - my idea was that beyond him in rock what else was there to listen to so I searched as he did and found all the other music I love today - more today than during my destructive times - now Safe as Milk is my life - wow

RIP, sir


Grow Fins, baby

[negative potential]

One of the most amusing anecdotes I've ever heard in an interview with a musician was with Gerry Hemingway in Cadence many years ago, where he relates a story from his youth where a schoolmate of his ordered an LP from a record club like Columbia House or BMG and hated it because the guitar playing was awful, the drummer couldn't play a beat, etc., and the young Hemingway just had to check it out. Of course it was Trout Mask Replica.

[alcofribas]

Oh My Oh My

I remember that moment when I finally laid my eyes on Trout Mask Replica in a Montreal record shop. That was 1976, and I'd been looking for it for 4 years.

I still listen to it pretty regularly, and still think it's one of the greatest works of art of the 20th century.

Yes, who in rock music can be said to be in the same league?

[Steve Reynolds]

called a friend and told him about the Captain - he *also* brought a CD to his car yesterday - The Spotlight Kid - intending to listen as well.

had *also* not listened to the great man for a few months

Both of us listened this morning - him Spotlight Kid - me Shiny Beast

'thought I had to pay my bill'



Owed T Alex - now *that* was a voice

[jon abbey]

pretty great piece here by Lester Bangs, from 1980:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsoun ... _bangs.php

==============================================

Have you ever had somebody you idolized or looked up to as an artist?

"Can't think of anybody, other than the fact that I thought Van Gogh was excellent."

How about in music?

"Never in music I never have. A hero in music. No, fortunately."

So you didn't listen to like Delta blues and free jazz and stuff before you started to-

"Not really. . . I met Eric Dolphy. He was a nice guy, but it was real limited to me, like bliddle-liddle-diddlenopdedit-bop, "I came a long way from St. Louie," like Ornette, you know. It didn't move me."

Dolphy didn't MOVE you?

"Well, he moved me, but he didn't move me as much as a goose, say. Now that could be a hero, a gander goose could definitely be a hero, the way they blow their heart out for nothing like that."

Is that because you think that people generally do it for purposes of ego?

"Um, yeah, which I think is good because it gets your shoes tied. You know what I mean, it doesn't scare old ladies, you get dressed. So I think that's nice."

You don't think it's possible to create art that's egoless, that just flows through you?

"That's possible, I'm tryin' to do that, on this last album definitely."

Well, one thing I find is that the more I know the less I know.

"Me too. I don't know anything about music."

[Steve Reynolds]

yeah I hate music, right

the greatest - or the worst, right?

just listened to Love Lies and I cried (again)

greatest chorus ever?!?

ha the greatest ever - I have no idea about anything if he didn't

Van Vliet is where so many of us crossed at different points in our lives far away and unknown from each other

I hope Brian O writes something somewhere....

[Steve Reynolds]

and of course he did, I am now reading it

love you man

[J.F.]

He said in the early 80s the most important thing in his life was his wife. Further I remember he once said he lived by the seaside, and enjoys looking over the water out of his window, sometimes spotting some whales breaking through the surface. Add to that reports by a few musicians close to Beefheart who kept claiming for years he's been alright and in okay healthy shape - that gave me the feeling the good old Captain, after he disappeared from the public, just might live a content life in privacy, surrounded by the things most important to him.

Some of his music means a lot to me, and this news makes me feel rather miserable.

[7/4]

Don mattered.

Thank you.

RIP.

[free math]

a pretty good little essay, not an obituary, but actually about his music, its influences and its influence (or the difficulty of tracing such).
http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/ ... beefheart/